The invention relates to an event monitor for court games, especially one which incorporates a self-regulating feature to permit unattended use of a court, or set of courts.
With the increasing popularity of court games, such as tennis, regulating usage of the courts presents an increasing problem. Typically a predetermined period is provided for the use of the court by each player, or group of players. However, since no truly satisfactory way exists to monitor the expired period of usage by players already on the court, subsequent players must depend upon their integrity in determining the extent of time still left to players already on the court. Also, since such courts are expensive to construct and maintain, it is desirable to recoup at least some of this cost by charging the players using the court for such usage. While it is possible both to monitor the period of usage and charge for such usage by providing an attendant for the court, or group of courts, this approach only adds to the cost and seldom is used.
It is quite desirable, for these reasons, to achieve a system that will automatically monitor the period of usage of the court by one group of players and signal to other, waiting players the amount of time left to the players on the court. Also, it is desirable to incorporate in such a system provisions requiring players using the court to pay for such usage. Further, it is desirable to provide for unattended actuation and use of the system, preferably by a light, simple card or token but one difficult to counterfeit. These and other objects of the invention will be apparent from the following description of a preferred embodiment.